


Escape The Dancefloor

by Esther_Summerson



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Women, Caretaking, Couch Cuddles, Dancing, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Minor Injuries, Nosy Super-Soldiers, POV First Person, Reader-Insert, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-08 00:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7734949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esther_Summerson/pseuds/Esther_Summerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even a girl's night out doesn't go smoothly for our heroine (who is you by the way).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escape The Dancefloor

"You guys are back early, we didn't expect you home for hours yet." I froze at the yell which emanated from the far side of the sofa, the sigh escaped my lips before I had the chance to hold it back.  
"No 'guys' Bucky, just me." I called back, and restarted my journey to the kitchen. My shoulders slumped as he muted the tv, my quest was not going to go unnoticed and the chances of a quiet escape to the sanctuary of my bedroom was fast disappearing.  
"What happened doll, where's everyone else?" Bucky's tone was only bordering on suspicious right now, but I knew it wouldn't be long before he had gotten the full story out of me.  
"They're still out, I um, I needed to pop to medical so came home." I pressed a glass to the ice dispenser on the front of our huge refrigerator and filled it, before moving to grab a towel and a small ziplock baggie.  
"Woah, wait a second just rewind there." Bucky said, vaulting over the back of the sofa and stalking towards me. "What do you mean you had to 'pop' to medical, what the hell happened? You ok?"  
"Yeah Buck," I sighed turning around to face him. "It's just a couple of bruised fingers, just what you get for punching somebody whilst wearing rings on your fingers."  
He lifted my fingers to better see the swelling that had already started to form around the first three fingers on my left hand.  
"The x-rays came back clear Bucky, no breaks, just bruising and some swelling. Hence the ice." I rattled the glass full, and he let go of my hand to grab the glass and empty the contents into the bag and wrap it in the cotton towel. Taking my damaged hand in his once again, he laid the rapidly cooling towel against my swelling fingers.  
"Come on, sit down with me doll and you can tell me what happened." I followed him over to the sofa, but stopped suddenly at the sight which greeted me. Steve was sprawled out on the sofa gently snoring, a pillow clutched to his chest and with his feet propped up on the coffee table. "Oh sorry, hold on a second. Hey Punk!" I froze as Bucky grabbed Steve by the shoulder and shook him awake.  
"Hey jerk, what the hell?" Steve sat forward suddenly, glaring at his buddy. I stood by, feeling more and more awkward as Bucky grinned down at his swearing friend as I watched. A few seconds passed before Steve finally glanced my way, and I gave him a small wave with my ice-pack. "Hi, I didn't see you there. You're back early sweetheart."  
"Yes she is Stevie, and if you move your ass and let her sit down she is going to tell us just how she came to be home so early and via a trip to medical." Bucky said, plumping back down into his recently vacated seat on the sofa.  
"Medical?" It was almost comical the way Steve's head jerked back towards me so quickly. He leapt up from his seat, and taking my arms guided me down onto the cushions which were still warm from his own body heat. "You ok?"  
"Punched someone, nothing broken, swelling and some bruising. Amiright doll?"  
"Yep Buck, that's about the long and short of it." I replied, sighing with pleasure as Steve removed my high heels allowing me to curl up onto the sofa. I smiled at him as he pulled an afghan down over my legs. "Thanks Steve."  
"So now she's going to fill in the blanks about just how she ends up punching someone on a girls night out." Came Bucky's facetious reply from the far end of the sofa, Steve glared at him from his position perched on the coffee table.  
"I hope you're sitting comfortably asshole, cos this story is short, sweet and doesn't paint your side of the species in the best light." I could see matching frowns on both of their gentlemanly faces as their brains tried to fill in the blanks to a story they hadn't been told yet. "So I'm dancing with this guy, he's cute, decent dancer, not trying to grab me, things are going ok. That is until I look up and see that the guy that Darcy is dancing with is not taking no for an answer and is attempting to drag her off the dance floor." Both of them start clenching their fists at this point, and the anger is almost palpable. "I do the only thing that I can, push my way through the crowd, grab the guy by his ear, spin him around and knee him in the balls so hard that he drops like a stone."  
"This is all sounding good so far, you've rescued Darcy, but if you kneed him in the balls how did you hurt your hand?" Bucky asked, leaning forward in his seat.  
"Well it turns out that the cutie that I had been dancing with was this guys friend. And he tried to come to his boy's rescue right? So he comes up behind me, grabs me by my arm so that I'm facing him, and just as he's pulling back his arm to land one in my stomach I punch him in the throat." I paused for breath, giving the two ex-soldiers the chance to digest what I had said before continuing. "Well of course he goes down, so I'm left in the middle of a rapidly emptying dance floor with two incapacitated dickheads and my arms full of a teary/grateful Darcy."  
"Sounds as though you had everything under control doll, so now there's just one thing left to explain." Steve said, leaning over and repositioning the ice-pack which I had dislodged slightly during my recounting of the tale. I looked up at him, and he must have seen the weariness in my eyes because he smiled that gentle smile at me. The one reserved for people who were in real need of an honest to God 'Steve Rogers' cares' grin. "Why did you come back here alone, where's everyone else."  
I settled back deeper into the embrace of the soft cushions behind me, and returned his smile with a sleepy version of my own.  
"Well at this point the staff get involved, one of the doormen comes over to ask if we're alright, whilst three of his team carry/drag the guys to a rear door of the club. Before we get the chance to answer, the manager is there, apologising for the guys' behaviour, asking if we want to press charges, and assuring us that our custom is more important than the lowlifes who had harassed us so they had received a lifetime ban." I could no longer feel the pain in my fingers by this point, in fact I could barely feel my fingers, but I wiggled them beneath the bag of ice all the same. "By way of an apology the manager offers us free champagne for the rest of the night, so I convince Jane, Darcy and Nat that they need to stay out, try and erase the bad memories of the evening. But I could already feel my fingers starting to swell, so I asked the manager to arrange a cab for me. One quick trip to medical and here I am telling you guys all about my fun-filled evening."  
"Sounds as though you need a bit of looking after too doll, what do you reckon Buck, think we should take care of our avenging heroine?" Steve said, looking over to where Bucky was smirking knowingly back at him.  
"I think someone has to," he replied quickly. "Tell you what doll, how about you snuggle up to the punk and watch this movie with us?"  
"Whatever you say Bucky, what are you guys watching anyway?" I asked, knowing full well that the adrenaline rush from earlier was long-gone and I wouldn't even be awake for much longer. Steve sat down next to me, and I shifted my legs around, put my head on his shoulder and breathed in deeply as his arm went around me to hold me close.  
"It's one that Nat recommended for us, The Goonies?" Steve replied, as he repositioned the ice pack against my chilled fingers.  
"Yeah, I love this movie," I murmured sleepily into his shoulder. "It's a childhood favourite, and when Nat told me how she grew up I knew that I had to share with her some of the stuff she'd missed. I'm so pleased she liked it too." Bucky and Steve shared a look over my head. "You oughta love it Steve, it's a good underdog story."

When I woke up it was still dark outside of the floor to ceiling windows, I had managed to stretch out along the length of the sofa, and I could tell from the gentle scratch of pencil against paper that I wasn't alone.  
"Hmmmm," I groaned, stretching my arms over my head as I sat up. "How long was I asleep for?"  
"It's only been a couple of hours, Bucky went to bed but I don't sleep much still so figured I'd keep you company until you woke up." Steve replied, laying down his sketch pad and pencil beneath the lamp standing on the end table next to him. "How do you feel?"  
I sat up properly, put my feet on the floor and stood up from the couch. Bending forwards, until my head was down by my ankles, and I could grasp my thighs I revelled in the stretch along my muscles after falling asleep on what was a very comfortable couch (but it was still just a couch.) Standing up I couldn't help but notice the pink tinge to Steve's ears, or was that just my imagination? I gave my fingers a tentative wiggle, and grimaced at the discomfort that shot through them.  
"It'll probably be a week or so before these don't hurt anymore," Steve said, coming to stand in front of me and taking my hand in his. I sighed at the feeling of his warm skin against mine.  
"Damnit Steve, why can't I just meet a nice guy and have a dance? How do I always manage to find the assholes?"  
"It sounds to me as though Darcy found him first this time sweetheart." He said softly, manipulating my fingers gently.  
"That's as maybe, but you can always judge a man based on the quality of his friends. I mean look at Tony," Steve huffed out a laugh at this. "No wait a second, I'm going somewhere with this. You look at Tony, and on the surface he's an arrogant ass. But then you look at his friends, at the people he surrounds himself with. There's Bruce, Pepper, Happy, you Steve. All incredibly good people, which means that there must be more to Tony than meets the eye. He must be a good man to be friends with someone like you."  
"Someone like me?"  
"Yeah, you're a good man Steve. You're honest and kind, you have an empathetic streak a mile wide, you're brave, determined and when I least expect it you come out with this mischievous sense of humour." All this was said as I stared at the floor between my feet, not quite being able to look him in the eye in case my own gave away the depth of my feelings.  
"Wow, that's a lot for one man to carry sweetheart." I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was grinning, so I smiled back up at him.  
"Yeah well, you're shoulders are broad," and I pushed him in the chest (completely ineffectually obvs, I couldn't move him if he didn't want to be moved) but it got the point of my joke across.  
"Would you care to dance with me?" Steve called out to my retreating form. I paused. My heart totally skipped a beat at the thought of being in his arms. Of being able to hold him that close. He must have taken my pause for a hesitation though because he continued. "I mean you've already said that I'm a nice guy, don't I meet your criteria?"  
All of them! I wanted to scream. Every desire, every hope, every need could be so easily filled by Steve Rogers' if he'd a mind to do it. But I knew that he didn't want me like that. I knew that he didn't need me the way that I needed him, the same way that I needed my next breath.  
"Friday?" I called out to the AI, my decision made.  
"Yes Miss?"  
"Can you play Can't Help Falling in Love please? Elvis' remastered version." The opening bars filled the living room of the Avengers' tower, my bare feet made no noise as I walked back over to where Steve was so patiently waiting. Standing before him, I offered him a small smile as I grasped his right hand in mine, rested my left against his chest and waited for him to place his hand at the small of my back. He used it to pull me in closer, and with the warmth of him surrounding me we started moving to the gentle beat of the song. I hadn't really thought about my choice, but it was more than apt given the circumstances.  
We swayed together until the song came to an end, surrounded by the presence of the music. I could feel the steady beat of Steve's heart beneath my hand, even as my own threatened to beat out of my chest. The silence that followed the song was heavy with a tension that I'd never felt before, I couldn't bring myself to break it. I stood there wrapped in the embrace of the man that I had loved for months now, and I greedily clung on to every second of it that he was willing to give me.  
"Hmm, that was nice," he whispered close to my ear.  
I scrambled to get my voice back, tried to find the words to let him know that of course I had enjoyed it, it was lovely, we were friends who had danced together after one of them had had a rough night. It was certainly no more than that.  
"Would you let me take you out dancing sometime?" Steve asked. His voice was hoarse, as though he too was fighting some kind of internal battle.  
"Sure, we can get the gang together and go out dancing." I replied having found my traitorous voice, and wrestled it back under my control.  
"No sweetheart," I felt Steve's finger beneath my chin as he raised my head so that I had no choice but to meet his gaze. His earnest and hopeful gaze."I meant just the two of us."  
"You mean like a......" I couldn't even utter the word.  
"Like a date, yeah. But I mean if I've gotten my wires crossed," he stuttered out, backing away from me. My hesitancy had broken the spell and I needed to fix this and fast.  
"Steve, wait a second." He stopped, but didn't look at me. I moved the two steps, closing the gap between us and wrapped my arms around his neck. Waiting until he looked at me, I smiled again, the smallest of hopeful smiles before raising myself up onto my toes and kissing the slightly worried frown off his lips. After a few seconds of stillness, he caught up with me and wrapping his arms around my waist lifted me up and returned the kiss wholeheartedly.  
Setting me back down onto my feet, he couldn't keep the sappy, slightly stunned grin off his face.  
"I would love to go dancing with you Steve, I would love to go on a date with you." I said, somewhat breathlessly. That was it, he let out the full force of the Steve Rogers' smile, and it was like being bathed in sunlight. He leant down to kiss me again, softly, the gentlest of pressure against my lips.  
"Name the time and place, and I will be there."  
"Will you wear this dress for me sweetheart? I haven't told you yet, but you look so beautiful."He replied, curving his arms around my back and pulling me in for another hug.  
"We'll see soldier, we'll see."  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy this, let me know what you think x  
> P.s. apologies for any typos, this was finished and posted kinda late.


End file.
